Glitch
by DarowdrynofArcadia
Summary: Miranda Lawson has spent two years and five billion credits to rebuild Commander Victory Shepard, but somewhere along the line she got too invested and made a series of mistakes. Everything has changed, and now she doesn't know where they stand. Rated M for language, some violence, and implied or explicit sexual encounters.
1. Glitch Found

_++Miranda++_

_Something went wrong. I fixed her, I fixed the Commander, but something went wrong, something didn't work. I don't know how I could fail her like this, how I could mess something so simple up, I'm supposed to be perfect. I don't make mistakes, I can't. But I did. I didn't bring back Shepard the way she was, and I've hurt three women in the process of failing._

_I hurt Victory herself by bringing her back almost right, by ensuring that her memories of Tali and the time they spent together were there and flawless. Somewhere in there though, I crossed the wires or something, because all she could do when faced with the woman was squirm and look at everything but her. Afterwards, Shepard came to me and confessed that she remembered loving Tali, but that she just doesn't feel the emotions anymore. She doesn't feel the connection and she doesn't understand why. Neither do I, I was sure that I did everything right, but it still wasn't enough. I failed my commander._

_I hurt Tali by giving her back the ghost of her past. When I brought back Shepard, I brought back everything that she had lost in the Collector attack, the most important person in her life. I had brought hope back into her world, only to watch the life be crushed out of her eyes as the Commander tried to act like they had never done anything. I saw what was left of Tali fade away as the woman she fell in love with pretended that they were only friends, that they had not shared the most intimate of rituals among the quarian people. I saw all of her hope for a future crash and burn, and I saw a resentment start to grow. I fear where that will lead as it matures._

_Last of all, I hurt myself in ways that I can't even fathom right now. I failed in my objective, ruining a track record of flawless achievements, I failed almost immediately as the second-in-command of Cerberus when I let Victory make the decisions on our mission, and I failed as her XO when she came to me to confess and all I could do was stare at the lips I'd fixed, marvel at how soft they looked, how fluidly they moved. I blatantly stared at her and admired my work, and then I forgot that I was admiring my achievements and just started to admire _her_. I admired her bearing, the dancing light in her eyes, the strength of her voice, the assured motions she had when she walked or moved anywhere. I stared hungrily at her lips even as heat started to crawl up my neck, my hands itched to explore her body in ways that had nothing to do with appreciating the perfection of my project and everything to do with appreciation of her physical conditioning. I realized what I was doing, and... I don't know. I just don't know anymore._

_Somewhere in all of my work on her I think... I think I may have started to desire what she had been. I worked so hard to make her exactly as she was because I wanted to.. I don't even know anymore. Did I want her perfect so that she'd be who she was? Did I want her perfect so that the Illusive Man would be pleased with the project's success? Or was it something else? Did I want her perfect because I was slowly filling up with unwholesome thoughts and desires, all pertaining to her? Did I want her to be physically perfect because I wanted her? I just don't know anymore._

* * *

++_Shepard++_

_Something is wrong here, I just know it. Miranda is never like this, or at least... I know she shouldn't be. She shouldn't doubt herself, she shouldn't be eaten up with her thoughts. The Miranda Lawson I know is someone so much stronger than this, and she always has been. She told me so much about herself when she was working on me, and I remember bits here and there. She told me how she was engineered by her father to be perfect, how she's always resented that meddling, and how she's always worked to be the best because that's all she had. She hates that she was made from one man's ego, and she constantly says that the only thing she can own is her own mistakes, but that's not true. I try to tell her that she can own the best thing in the galaxy: she brought someone back from the dead, made a person live again with all of their memories intact. The fact that it's me doesn't mean anything..._

_Except it does. She brought me back. _She_ brought me back, not someone else. Miranda, the perfect woman, the woman engineered to be better than you, is the one that brought me back, and she is the first person I saw when I woke up. I don't mean when she yelled at me through the speakers, I mean when Wilson fucked up and the sedatives didn't keep me under. I saw her face and she was... angelic. All the connections to Tali were there, but... all the things that my memories of her elicited? When I saw Miranda's face, those squigglies that I had felt for the quarian roared to life just under my breastbone, my heart fluttering and beating against my ribs. I reached for her, trying to touch her face, and when she held my hand I felt more alive than I have since I woke up. There hasn't been another touch since that day, I don't know how to initiate it._

_She'll barely talk to me, she looks away most of the time, and when she looks at me she turns red. She feels this too, I know that in my heart, but she won't let me stick around long enough for her to confirm it. Every time she kicks me out, I can see her self-loathing grow just a little bit more. I have to put a stop to that now, tonight. I can't let her hate herself anymore when there is just so much that we could do, so much we could become, if she'd just let me in..._

* * *

++_Miranda++_

There is a tapping on my door and from the rhythm(_tap tap tap-tap tap_), I know that it's Victory. I know that it's the beautiful woman who runs this ship, who has spent the time since we escaped the Lazarus facility trying to get to know me, who has not given up on getting close to me yet. No matter how many times I deny myself, she always comes back. It is becoming so difficult to turn Victory away that I'm not sure I can do it for much longer. However, this time she doesn't wait for me to acknowledge her and steps through the door with her usual greeting dripping from her lips, "Do you have a minute, Miranda?"

_For you Commander, I have all the time in the universe._ "I really should finish these reports, Commander." I reply, keeping my eyes on the screen in front of me. When the door closes again, I sigh with relief. _She's gone away again. Gods I don't think I can do this dance much longer._ "Your reports don't seem to be that important, Miranda. From what I can see, you haven't done anything with them for the last forty-eight hours."

My eyes snap open to see Victory standing in my cabin, leaning on the wall with bare feet and a grin on her nearly flawless face. _I did too well fixing her, she's... entrancing._ When she speaks again, her voice hits a timbre that sends shivers down my spine. "I know what you're really doing, Lawson. You're pushing me away out of some misguided attempt at altruism, and I'm already tired of it." _Oh Commander, you'd be so angry if you knew why I was doing it, what I'd rather be doing instead..._ She steps closer, her footfalls silent even to my genetically enhanced hearing, and leans against my desk. My eyes get stuck staring at her full lips, all thought derailing and spiraling down into a pit of musings about the way it might feel to kiss her, to have her warm and supple body pressed to me, to have those slender fingers caressing every inch of me, and when her lips move I almost miss the words themselves. "Well guess what princess? This time I'm not leaving until I get what I want, and I always get there in the end."

I struggle to make some reply, anything that might help get things back on track for me, but all I can manage is a strangled groan that manages to be a question. Victory leans closer still and I can feel the warmth of her breath on my face, smell the strange sweetness on her tongue as she whispers, "I've seen you staring when you thought I might not notice, and I couldn't miss the alarm in your voice when you woke me on the station. So tell me Lawson, what are you hiding from me and yourself?" _I can't tell you that, you'll hate me. You have your quarian, and I..._ "I-I... umm... why are you asking, Commander? What relevance does this have to the mission?" She doesn't pull away, instead staying just where she is so that I can still smell her enticing and intoxicating breath as she replies, "I need everyone at their best, and that means I need to know what's really... on your mind." My eyes flick up to hers for a moment before they get stuck there, her stormy gaze transfixing me. The look I see there is naked and undisguised, lust and some emotion I can't place warring inside her and radiating off of her in equal parts.

_I... oh shit, I'm buggered now aren't I? If she doesn't move right now, I'm going to leap over this desk and rip those clothes off of her._ "Commander..." I begin weakly, knowing I should say something to stop this from happening, knowing that it's probably just her not having had sex in two years, knowing that she belongs to the quarian we ran into on Freedom's Progress, but then a look of frustration crosses over her features and she flares blue, reminding me of my little rebellion against the Illusive Man. He stopped me from putting in a control chip, but she had the potential for biotics so I put in the implants and made her into a vanguard instead of rebuilding her as the infiltrator she had been. The L5n implants are the most cutting edge tech we have for biotics and her amp is the strongest I could requisition, and I'm seeing the results now. Before I can react, a precise pull field tugs me closer and all I can think is, _'My she does learn fast.'_ Then her lips are on mine and all thought ceases as we battle for dominance.

When she pauses for a moment I pull away and stare uncertainly at her, a single thought on my mind. "But... Tali?" The anger that flashes in her eyes is obvious, and though I know I have succeeded in my goal, I cannot feel the rush that should come with that knowledge. I only feel an empty sort of loss, a longing that I know will never be answered because I'm not the woman she loves. The hiss of her whisper cuts deeper than any blade, pierces me more painfully than any bullet ever could. "She isn't here, and she's not the one I want _now_." Her emphasis on the present doesn't escape my notice, but it does take the will to resist away from me. Even if it's just for now, even if it's a mistake, she wants me in the here and now. I can't hold back anymore, instead lunging forward and taking her mouth with mine, steering her for the bed and struggling to rid us of the barriers we wear.

* * *

_++Shepard++_

By the gods is it frustrating trying to get through to her. Miranda is the most stubborn and pig-headed woman I have ever met, and yet she is just so enticing and so incredible in spite of her genetic tailoring that I want to overlook all of it and just see the woman underneath. She does make that difficult, but in the end I think I'll get there. She just has to let me in a little more...

I flush as I walk away from her quarters, a smile on my lips as the memory of the last four hours replays in my head. She may have tried to resist at first, but once she gave in to what I _knew_ she wanted, she was... perfect. Those lips, that tongue..._ those hands, umph..._ and that thing she did with her biotics? Unbelievable. Miranda is so much more than I'd hoped she would be, and that's just tonight. I want to force her to drop the walls she's putting up against me, I want her to let me in. I want her to know that I want this, that I want her and have no reservations about it. I mean, yes I had Tali and we were amazing and all, but I just don't have the investment in her that I did. Maybe that has something to do with dying, maybe that just has something to do with the fact that it wasn't Tali that rebuilt me but Miranda instead, or maybe it's both. I don't care about the reasons why, I just care about the fucking results, and those are more than enough to deal with for now.

I'm sure that I got my point through tonight, so this shouldn't be such an issue next time I want to talk. I'm glad that I managed to do this right, that I broke through and showed her what I want to be, what I want us to become. I know it's unprofessional and I know that it'll probably bother her for a bit, maybe even for a long time, but I want to make this choice together and I want her to know that I'll wait for it as long as I need to. In the meantime, I'm more than willing to be physical when she needs it and to listen when she talks. _'__I'll even go so far as to consider her advice,'_ I think with a smirk. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get to keep Miranda.


	2. Glitch Confirmed

_++Miranda++_

I wake with delicious aches all over my body, and for a few glorious moments all I can do is moan happily and wriggle, then memories of the night before collide with my waking mind and mortification sets in. I remember Shepard coming to visit me the night before, I remember failing utterly to set her off and keep her faithful to the woman that I know she should be loyal to, and I remember the hours_(hours! God...)_ of mind-blowing and totally satisfying sex. And yet, I also remember that she was stressing a need of the moment and not a more permanent desire, and a few tears escape my eyes as I consider what that means for me. _'A taste of heaven, of an eden I will never be allowed to stay in.'_

I quickly pull my catsuit on and shuffle out of my quarters, only to hear a blood-curdling scream of pain echo out of the medbay. Our acrobatics the night before mean that I recognize her voice even now, and all I can think is that Shepard is in pain and I have to save her. My heels click harshly against the deck as I sprint across the ship to the door to the medbay and slam the lock override, the whoosh of the door blocked out entirely by another scream that frames the scene before me. Victory is lying on a bed, Karin Chakwas frantically rushing about with her omnitool glowing and administering medigel to the lesions that continue to appear on the commander's body.

The arcing of blue biotic fields wipes any doubt about what is causing her pain from my mind and I know that this is unequivocally my fault. If I hadn't placed the biotic amps in her, if I hadn't changed her so fundamentally, she'd be fine right now. She's rejecting the framework and it's all because of me, memories of my early life dredging themselves up as I sink to the ground staring at her.

_I knock at the old-fashioned oak door, waiting for the words to come, dreading them. "Enter, Miranda." The tone of my father's voice is everything that it shouldn't be, flat and uncaring, filled with a businessman's edge that should only be for when he is speaking to clients. My breathing shaky, I push open the doors that seem to extend into eternity over my head and enter the office, walled in by books. He doesn't turn to look at me. "You have failed again, child. Your tutors have told me that you were spending more time in your classes drawing and writing silly stories than you were doing the coursework you were assigned. You disappoint me. What do you have to say for yourself?"_

_"Father, my classes are boring. They are all that I ever do, and I know what is being taught every bit as well as the tutors, it isn't fair!" He finally turns to look at me and I flinch, seeing the deadness in his eyes that I dread every night in my dreams. My nightmares. "Fair is not a word you should ever use, Miranda. Business isn't fair, and you cannot be either. If you know the material, then I will bring in new tutors to teach you things you do not know. Do not fail me again, or you will be sanctioned. Do you remember what that means?" My eyes flick to the ground as the memory of my last sanction fill me with fear. "Yes Father." I can still feel the wet, the pain of the electroshock, the rub of the restraints on my wrists and ankles._

_Now the images shift. I am older, smarter, and just as trapped. "Miranda, you have failed me. I warned you that you would be sanctioned if you failed." He looks behind me at someone I didn't see when I entered. "Take her." I curse myself as strong hands grab my wrists, cutting off my biotic abilities completely even as I am lifted off the ground and swiftly removed from the office, a bag making its way over my head soon after. Hours of pain, lashes over every part of my body, always enough to hurt but never enough to make me bleed. Again and again and again the pain comes, squeezing tears out of my eyes no matter how hard I tried to stop them._

_Again, new images. Another failure, but this time I am old enough to escape, and I fight back. I run, shoving through doors until I find the nursery. I reach for the baby and..._

"Miranda! Miss Lawson don't just sit there, get in here and help me dammit! You know what to do here better than I do, you rebuilt her! _Save Shepard or so help me I will rip out your fingernails!_" The frantic shouts of the doctor wake me from my pained recollections and I stagger to my feet, desperately trying to figure out what to do. Then I see it, the tiny perforations along the sheath around one of the eezo nodes, and I know who did it and how to fix it. "Damn you Wilson... If I hadn't already killed you, I'd kill you now." I turn to Karin and tell her to prep the repair module that I had specifically included on the Normandy. "We have to get her in there _now_, it'll place a protein overlay on all of her implants and repair the damage my former assistant did to her. I'm actually amazed that it's taken this long to occur, but at least it happened on the ship and not out of assignment." _Please Shepard, just hold on._

* * *

_++Shepard++_

I wake to find myself on a table in the medbay, one hell of a headache and more burns than I've had in a long time stabbing me awake with the pain. Still, I'm alive, and whatever was hurting me is gone. The first thought I have is "Ow, what the fuck happened," followed very quickly by "Oh hello gorgeous, what are you doing sleeping on my bed?" Then I realize that I'm _in the bloody medbay,_ so of course Miranda would fall asleep at the foot of my bed, she'd be worried about me. I can't really say I blame her, I _did_ rock her world last night and completely blow her objections away, and the sight of her so adorable in her chair moves me to do something I've never really been big on doing.

My body aching from whatever happened, I slowly and painfully flip around in the bed and take her hand, my lips pressing carefully on her knuckles as I snuggle back onto the bed to rest some more. As I drift away again, I have several fleeting thoughts, among them a fairly simple one. _"I need to get her something other than this damnable catsuit to wear.'_

It is several hours later when I wake again, righted on the bed and conspicuously missing Miranda's presence. Chakwas walks in and sees my eyes are open, smiling at me and telling me, "Glad to see you up, Commander. I believe your XO is holed up in her office, having found you holding her hand in your sleep earlier." I grin and bounce up, thanking her even as I sprint out the door and across the deck to Miranda's office.

* * *

_++Miranda++_

I don't know what to do, what to feel or say or think or _anything._ I had believed I knew what was happening last night as Victory seduced me, but when I woke in the medbay to find her clutching my hand and so at peace, I began to question my own conclusions, my own judgement. I had believed that the commander was just lonely, that she was perhaps painfully horny after two years without sex, though looking back on it I find it quite likely she hardly noticed the absence since she had been fairly abstinent before Tali, had only been with Tali a handful of times, and had in fact been unconscious or barely even classifiable as living for the better part of her reconstruction. What does that mean for last night? What if she wasn't stressing the present because of immediacy, what if she was stressing the present for another reason?

I have recently come to understand that she has actually known me longer than she knew Tali, at least in terms of knowing things about me or being there to hear me. I managed to build a rapport with her when I thought that it wouldn't make any difference, when I thought she'd never remember anything anyway. I quite accidentally helped Commander Victory Shepard, the first human Spectre and Hero of the Battle of the Citadel, Savior of the Council, Butcher of Torfan, learn more about me than she knows about her former lover, and if last night is anything to judge by, perhaps I began to build something else too.

My thoughts are interrupted when the door of my office hisses open, a smiling and mostly recovered Victory standing in the doorway. "Hey there lover." she quips, that cocky grin and those come-hither gray eyes piercing straight through my heart. My breath catches at the sight of her, dark skin and Indian features conjuring to mind descriptions of the Hindu goddesses of old. Of course, I know from her files that those are not the gods she believes in, and having seen her fight I can attest that she does her own deities proud as well, the Tuatha Dé Danann well served with every battles she joins. Still, I cannot help but wonder if this woman is not truly the angel she seems to be, frightening and beautiful at once and always in command of the situation.

"Commander, about last night, I understand that it was just an immediate need, so I have no hard feelings about it at all." I lie with a straight face, keeping tight rein on my emotions and hoping she doesn't notice my heart shattering as I say the words. I watch her face fall and I know it's because I also just took away the chance of it ever happening again, just to save myself the heartbreak when she tells me she doesn't want to continue later. "O-oh, okay... I thought... I thought maybe you felt..." She turns away, so thoroughly dejected and depressed that at first I panic and wonder if I read the situation wrong before I remind myself that it's just her losing a fling, nothing big or world-breaking. She doesn't like to share, and she likes to lose even less, and I'm just protecting myself from getting too attached to a woman who is spoken for.

* * *

_++Shepard++_

I don't know what hour it is. I don't know how much time has passed. I know that I have gone on a mission(_or was it two?_), but I don't remember much from them(_it?_). Everything is a blur, just out of focus, out of reach. Nothing really seems to matter to me at the moment, though I don't know why(_is it because of Miranda?_). I'm sitting in my cabin(_alone, so alone_) still dripping from my shower but I don't care, I don't feel, I just simply exist(_it isn't simple_). I hear EDI talking, but the words don't make sense, I can't connect them to a meaning. Then I feel hands on me but I don't look up(_they won't be hers_).

I hear another voice(_so beautiful, so haunting_) and the world shifts. The bed doesn't support me anymore, it's like the only way to stay upright is to stand and wrap my arms around this person before me(_such a soft chest_). Dark hair brushes my cheek and the teasing tones of her voice trip into my ear(_I could listen to you forever_), the words roaring inside me. "Shepard, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong, tell me... tell me what I did wrong. Tell me I was wrong."

I don't know what to do, I can't speak, so it's a stranger's words in my voice that get said, "You were so fucking wrong you stupid fucking bitch, how could you think that I would _use_ you like that, _play with you_ like a thing?" I feel her shrink, feel her shake, hear her whimper(_don't cry, I didn't mean it_), but she doesn't defend herself. The stranger's words continue in my voice, "I'm not fucking playing around here, I'm in this for the long bloody haul, so tell me now if you're too much of a pussy to handle it and I'll let you run off and be a mewling quim without me. I want the woman who can rebuild a life, not some jumped up scientist in a catsuit, d'you hear me?"

She nods meekly, shaking and shivering and trying not to cry(_no tears, no tears, baby please no tears_), just clinging onto me until she can look up and I see her eyes(_those big, beautiful chocolate eyes_), and my heart melts all over again(_please let me love you_). "Shepard, I..." she murmurs, her voice watery and uncertain, "I'm so sorry. I thought you were just looking for gratification, a fling, that you didn't... that you wouldn't..." She trails off, uncertain but resolute to do _something_. That's all I see on her face, a look that says "I have to do this now," and then her lips are pressed to mine(_sweet taste, salty tears_) and nothing else matters. I feel my arms snap around her shoulders and pull me close, one leg hooking behind her hip to keep her there and I snog her silly and when it breaks, I finally speak my own words, "Stay here tonight, Lawson. That's an order." I feel the smile on my lips and I say one more thing, my voice dangerously husky, "And call me Vicky... lover."

* * *

**A/N:** SO! Here we are, the not so awaited second chapter of this little glitch-fic where I play on a more well-traveled field. I can find plenty of Miri/FemShep stories, though the number of good ones(in my opinion) is limited. In point of fact, these are them:

First up is Ms. DKLC, with The Girl Crush, a story I've been plugging for a bit now because it's just so darn good. :3

Next is TheChemistJorax with The Perfect Woman(and attending sequels), as well as The Days We Have Forgotten.

Last is sunshinelemonaid with her AU high school story Chasing Perfection, more fun to read than some others purely for the Kaidan hate.

So my lovelies, please read and review, I love to hear what you think!


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